MBB: College Conference of Illinois and Wisconsin

[kenoshamark]

Carthage beats Platteville tonight 78 - 65.

http://www.carthage.edu/athleticspages/mens/basketball/uwp.htm#GAME.BOX

First off, after being very disappointed with the level of recruiting for the past five years, I have to give Bosko and his staff major kudos with this group he has brought in.  After seeing them in a scrimmage and now two games, I become more impressed each time with the quaility of players they have.  To have four of them able to see the floor this early in their careers is quite amazing.  They are ready to step in and contribute and that was evident after two games against both Whitewater and Platteville. 

Steve led the way tonight with 24 points and 6 assists, Cary had 16 and the two big men, Pierce and Guzman added 14 and 10 respectively.   Also, two more freshmen, Malcom Kelly and Mitch Thomspon saw over 25 minutes a piece and each scored 6 points and pulled down 5 boards (to lead the team in that stat).   Guzman does get in foul trouble easily and after sitting a good portion of the first half, he picked up a really bad foul early in the second half so he was limited in his minutes but he continues to knock down the three consistently.  Pierce was a force inside for a nice stretch tonight as well.

The majority of the second half playing time consisted of Steve, Cary, Pierce, Thompson and Kelly.  A junior, sophomore and three freshmen.   Yes, it should be a nice ride for Carthage over the next few years if they can keep this class intact. 

Although Carthage wasn't out rebounded like last night, they still need to find a way not to give up some easy offensive boards.   Platteville was very effective in getting some easy buckets that they shouldn't have off of missed boards. 

Finally, Carthage shot 67% from the floor and 80% from the free throw line.   Nice win against a very respectable opponent who has a very seasoned backcourt.   The main problem for Carthage tonight was trying to handle their forward, Eric Wall.

[voxelmhurst]

Elmhurst loses at home to St. Norbert 63-61.  Circumstances kept me from staying for the second half but despite an entire first half lead for EC....they cooled off down the stretch (also amassed 7 team fouls in the first 7 minutes) of the first half and I figured St. Norbert would give them a good run in the second.

Jays led in scoring by Boyd, Childs, and Bainter with Matt Bernier putting in 10 off the bench.

A very different looking EC team than years past, as expected.  Outrebounded tonight, which I feel won't be the last time we say that this season, though they did get 8 steals and force 18 turnovers so perhaps they can get the ball back a lot before a shot goes up.  

Needless to say, EC is gonna need a lot out of the backcourt this year.

Almost forgot.....the crowd was HUGE at RA Faganel tonight.  By far one of the best November/Non-Conference crowds to date.  I hope it keeps up!!

[kenoshamark]

Article from the Kenosha News regarding the game last night:

http://www.kenoshanews.com/sports/freshmen_buoy_red_men_6800403.html

[Titan Q]

IWU 101
Johnson & Wales 62

http://www.iwusports.com/custompages/MBB/MBB2010/HTML/tipoff2.htm


* Doug Sexauer: 21 pts, 7 reb
* Jordan Zimmer: 15 pts, 4 reb
* Duncan Lawson: 13 pts, 5 reb
* Ryan Connolly: 11 pts
* Sean Johnson: 4 pts, 8 reb, 7 assists


This was the first time I've seen the Titans play in 2009-10, and in fact, the first time since midway through last season.  I tried not to form too many opinions after one game vs an inferior team, but some general thoughts...


* As a team overall, IWU is significantly better than last season in almost every phase of the game.  They are physically bigger and stronger - that's very obvious having not seen these guys for almost a year.  They also just play much harder - it's seems to me like they now understand what "playing hard" really means.

* 6-7 Doug Sexauer (averaging 19 & 7 through 3 games) has become a really good low-post player.  He is an absolute load down low and most teams are going to have to double him...which is what triggers IWU's offense.   Just looking at where Doug is in the early stages of his junior year, he's right there with IWU's top big guys of the last decade or so relative to the same point in their careers...guys like Luke Kasten and Zach Freeman.  (Sexauer is a very different player than those two, and I don't think his ceiling is where Freeman's was, but impact-wise, he's right where they were at the same stage.)

* Sean Johnson looks like a different player this season.   When he gets the ball, he looks to take his man off the dribble first, and he has become a good penetrator.  At 6-1, he's undersized vs some D3 2-guards, but he's strong, and he knows how to use his body really well with the ball in his hands.  Johnson is also working very hard on the defensive end and overall, just looks good out there.  

* Duncan Lawson has improved a lot.  A 6-8 kid who has a "post body and a perimeter mind" (Ron Rose quote from WJBC postgame show last night), he has accepted his role as a low-post player and is settling in nicely to it.  Duncan can step out and make a 3 or an 18 footer, so he causes some matchup problems when he is in there.  He is another guy who just looks to be playing so much harder.  

* 6-9/275 Ryan "Big Country" Connolly has improved as much from one season to the next as any IWU player I can think of in a long time.  He's not as smooth and skilled as a Brent Ruch, and he'll never be a 1st Team All-American, but Connolly is a huge factor on the floor when he's in there.  One-on-one, not many D3 teams can guard him.  When IWU gets him the ball on the blocks, it's either a made basket, a miss, or FT's (where he has a really nice touch)...very rarely does he have to kick it back out because he can't get a good shot off.  Connolly is such a beast, I never realized just how much game he has...it aint pretty, but he knows what he's doing with the ball.  

* Travis Rosenkranz controls the tempo of the game very well.  It's clear to me, he has settled into the role of a "pure point-guard"...control the tempo, create for others, play with composure, etc.  I'd like to see him look for his shot more, but with the scorers on the floor with him (always 3 good ones), Travis can be a really good PG without shooting very much.  Travis looked to have command of the team last night to me.

* Jordan Zimmer can shoot the basketball from beyond the arc about as well as anyone in Division III.  He's just a sophomore, but in terms of just being a pure shooter, he's right there with the best I've seen at IWU (Korey Coon and Keelan Amelianovich).  As has been discussed here, for him to become a great player, he'll need to add more dimensions to his game (exactly as Amelianovich and Bryan Crabtree had to)...but I think he will in time.  Zimmer has a pretty high ceiling.



Again, Johnson & Wales was not a good team, but I still came away with a pretty good feeling for where the team is, and I liked what I saw.  The Titans still have to keep getting better defensively, and they have to keep figuring out their post-Koschnitzky injury rotation, but IWU is a lot better team than 2008-09.  I'd be absolutely shocked if the Titans aren't right in the middle of the CCIW title race until the very end.

[Titan Q]

IWU faces #1 Wash U today at 4:00pm.  The Bears trailed a very young, but very talented, Ohio Wesleyan team by 5 at the half yesterday, and then absolutely dismantled the Bishops in the 2nd half.  (Wash U outscored OWU 44-23 in the second 20 minutes.)

I've been watching this Wash U nucleus (Wallis, Thompson, Smith) for 4 years now, and it's amazing to me how they always just seem to "flip a switch" and go into that machine-like offensive mode.  The Bears looked sluggish for most of the 1st half, and their All-American PG Sean Wallis had to score 12-14 points to keep them in the game, but a few minutes into the 2nd, they kicked it into high gear and showed everyone in the gym why they've won 2 national titles in a row.  I have said this many times, but this Wash U group reminds me so much of a Dennie Bridges IWU team.  They are incredibly skilled, they play with poise at all times, and they just have an enormous swagger on the floor.

No one in Division III has better starting guards than the Bears.  As far as pure point-guards, Sean Wallis is as good as it gets...he just makes their entire team tick.  As far as complete players at the 2, Aaron Thompson is the best in country, as far as I've seen.  A pure shooter from all over the floor who rarely misses an open shot, but also a guy who, over the years, has learned to take defenders off the dribble and get to the basket.

It will be interesting to see where IWU is today vs the #1-ranked Bears.  IWU's low post game is better than Wash U's, and the Titans will have to find a way to take advantage of that.  While IWU doesn't have two 1st Team All-American guards, Travis Rosenkranz and Sean Johnson are very good players, and they have the ability to battle Wallis and Thompson.  They both have the last two years...

http://www.iwusports.com/custompages/MBB/MBB2009/IWU5.HTM

http://www.iwu.edu/~iwunews/sports/mbb2008/IWUMBB7.HTM


I think this will be a good game.

[augiefan]

With better depth and the home court advantage IWU should make a real game of it this afternoon. However, Wallis is a tough nut to crack during crunch time, so I think the Bears eke out a narrow victorey.
On the positive side the 5th ranked IWU women beat top ranked Wash U's yesterday 58-53, so perhaps lightning can strike twice in the same weekend in balmy Bloomington, IL.

[augiefan]

Just to round out last night's CCIW results not reported on this main board NPU lost 63-61 to Concordia, Millikin lost by 13 to Franklin College and Augie beat MacMurray by 20.

[WUPHF]

Titan Q: thanks for your thoughts on the games yesterday.  Not much going on in the UAA thread so I had to take a look here.

My wife and I had tentatively planned on driving up to Bloomington-Normal for the weekend, and now I very much wish that we had.

The Bears had a sluggish start against MacMurray before flipping the switch, as you said, and taking them out in a convincing fashion.  The Bears are super-athletic, but should not expect to be able to reel in the Titans in the second half if they fall behind.

It was a good weekend for both schools athletically speaking: your wins in basketball and football, ours in volleyball and women's soccer.  This game should be as interesting as the rest.

[Mr. Ypsi]

For quite a while I thought it might be one of the greatest sports weekends in IWU history.  Beat Wabash in a football playoff in double OT.  Beat #1 WashU in women's bball, 58-53.  I was really hoping to be able to say: WashU showed up at Shirk with two #1 ranked teams; went home with two losses!

Alas, the Titan men fell just short (76-71).  Rosenkranz had 17, plus 4 rebounds.  Sexauer had 12 and 5.  Johnson had 11, Zimmer 10, and O'Callaghan had 8 plus 12 rebounds.  Connolly (with his slim down, I guess I'll accept Q's Big Country over my formerly preferred Big Continent! ) had 6 points and 5 rebounds in only 11 minutes - gotta find a way to get him more minutes!

Aaron Thompson showed why he was a 1st-team AA with 31 points.  Their other 1st-team AA, Sean Wallis had 8 assists, but only 8 points (though he may have justified his AA credentials by getting 6 of those 8 in 'crunch time').

Heckuva try at the sweep, Titans.

[AndOne]

Facing the high leaping, high flying Mississippi College Choctaws going into the championship game of the Holiday Inn Select Tip Off Tourney in Naperville last night, the North Central Cardinals were rightfully concerned with the Choctaws inside power game. While they were fairly successful in countering that facet of MC's game, they failed to realize, and thus adequately defend against the Choctaws propensity to connect from downtown. Accordingly, the men from Mississippi banked 8 three balls in the first half of play en route to a 41-18 advantage with 5:32 left in the first half. The Cards then dug in and began the long crawl back, knocking the deficit down to 13  at the break. They continued to carry the fight into the 2nd half, eventually charging to within just 1 point of tying the contest, they trailed by only a 67-66 score with 4:53 left in the game. However, the Choctaws closed with a 17-11 run to take a 84-77 victory over the Cardinals.
North Central was led by freshman Derek Raridon who scorched the nets for a game high 24 points on 7 of 12 shooting (4/6 on threes including a missed last second desperation heave) from the field,
and 6 of 8 from the line. He also grabbed 4 rebounds and dished out 3 assists. Reid Barringer dropped in 19. Brian Evans (4/4 + 3/4 in only 13 minutes) and Kyle Julius both scored 11 of the bench, and backup guard Mike Saris chipped in with 7.  
The Mississippi starters scored only 27 points, but 8 subs, all of who scored, combined for a total of 57.

[Ralph Turner]

Typical Mississippi College game...they go 12-15 deep with no drop-off in talent.

NCC's mental toughness is what got you back into the game.  It is hard for MC to keep a mentally tough team that far down for the remaining 24 minutes of a game.

[Gregory Sager]

You can lose a game in the first half, and that's what NPU did last night against a Concordia IL team that it should've beaten handily. The Vikings came out listless and disoriented, quickly fell behind 8-0, and spent the entire first half botching just about every one of their possessions. They didn't space the floor properly; the big men made bad decisions with the ball; the guards held onto the ball rather than moving it around; they bonked half of their free throws off of the rim and out; and on the few occasions in which they set a proper screen, the ballhandler didn't use it. As a result, the Cougars maintained that eight-point lead at the half, 30-22.

It was a different story in the second half, as the Vikings played with a lot more energy and a lot more focus. But the problem with letting an underdog build a lead like that, especially in the underdog's gym, is that it will gain the kind of confidence that can keep a team playing over its head for a sustained amount of time, which is what Concordia did. It took the Vikes all the way to the 4:41 mark of the second stanza before they finally caught up and took their first lead of the game, and I think that they'd expended too much energy just to get to that point. Down the stretch it was PG Deontay Young of the Cougars who was making all of the plays, rather than any of the Vikings. NPU did get a last crack at the basket down by two, but Ro Russell's running hook shot with two seconds left was off-target and Concordia secured the rebound for the upset win.

Nick Williams, who scored 16 points to lead North Park, played very well and was actually the most inspirational member of the team on the sidelines during the comeback. That was almost as great to see out of the senior co-captain as his improved play on the floor. But the Vikings as a whole only played twenty minutes of ball, and you can't assume that twenty minutes of ball is all it will take to win, Concordia or not. Not to take anything away from a doughty Cougars outfit that clearly earned the victory, but the Vikings should never lose to Concordia -- and when they do it's time for NPU to take a long, hard look in the mirror.

Given the team's talent level, I had North Park pegged for 4-0 at this point. I'm as shocked and dismayed as anyone at the fact that the Vikes are 1-3 instead. Talented or not, North Park is a long, long, long ways away from being a good basketball team at this point.

[Titan Q]

Wash U 76
IWU 71

http://www.iwusports.com/custompages/MBB/MBB2010/HTML/iwumbb4.htm

http://www.pantagraph.com/sports/college/basketball/men/article_d2f61188-d7f3-11de-bc78-001cc4c03286.html

* Travis Rosenkranz: 17 pts, 4 reb
* Doug Sexauer: 12 pts, 5 reb, 3 assists
* Sean Johnson: 11 pts, 3 assists
* Jordan Zimmer: 10 pts (5-5 FT)
* Ed O'Callaghan: 8 pts, 12 reb


Overall, a great game between the Bears and Titans yesterday in Bloomington.  Towards the end of the 1st half, it looked like the two time defending national champions might pull away and dominate the game - the Bears led 35-26 with 2:05 to play.  IWU fought back, however, and got it to a 5-point deficit at the half (37-32).

In the 2nd, Wash U led 51-45 with 11:45 to play when IWU went on a 15-6 run to take a 60-57 led at the 7:53 mark.  Sophomore Jordan Zimmer scored 7 of those points, including 3 on a strong drive to the basket while getting fouled.  The Titans led by 1 with 5:43 to play (64-63) and really just had a few possessions they'd like to have back I'm sure - a couple bad breaks (two players fighting for a rebound and having it fall out of bounds back to Wash U...a long rebound off a badly missed Wash U shot that stayed with the Bears), a couple bad shot decisions, and a couple costly fouls on the defensive end.  The veteran Bears made all the right plays in the final few minutes to seal the road win...having watched this Wash U nucleus do the same thing during the final minutes of NCAA tournament games for the last few years, that was certainly no surprise.

A couple general thoughts on the game overall:

1) Aaron Thompson is just an unbelievable player.  He absolutely carried Wash U yesterday, scoring 31 points (and only 6 of those were from beyond the arc).  At 6-4, he is just a really difficult matchup at the the D3 level.

2) Travis Rosenkranz had a fantastic game, on both ends of the floor.  On defense, he did a great job on all-American PG Sean Wallis – he picked Wallis up at the halfcourt and really made him work in getting Wash U into their offense.  On offense, Travis was aggressive and was a huge spark for the Titans.

3) IWU did a terrible job getting the ball inside in the 1st half.  The guards kept the Titans in the game during the first 20 minutes (namely Travis Rosenkranz who had 12 in the first), and the bigs were a non-factor.  Now, Wash U does play terrific lost post defense, and good team defense overall, but IWU's big guys just were not physically tough enough in the 1st.  They allowed themselves to get pushed around.  (In the 2nd, Doug Sexauer, Edmond O'Callaghan, and Ryan Connolly were different players.)

4) The Titans just didn't shoot the 3 well yesterday – 6 of 23 from beyond the arc (23%).  Some of those misses were due to good Wash U defense, but a bunch were wide-open shots.  Jordan Zimmer was 1-6 from 3 and Sean Johnson 1-5...and when those two take 11 3's, I expect 5 to go in.  


I left disappointed the Titans didn't find a way to close the deal – they were right there, and this was a big in-region game.  While I'm not such a big fan of moral victories in a big game, I will say that I left pretty excited about this season...the Titans are a good basketball team and should have a lot of success the rest of the way.  

[y_jack_lok]

Nice write up, TQ. Couldn't agree more with everything you said. Thanks form coming over to say hello and chat.

[REDMENFAN]

Great weekend of basketball at the Tarble Arena.  The Redmen almost found a way to win both, but UWW made one more play in their 82-81 victory.  UWW started 6'9'' and 6'7'' in the post, and Carthage had trouble allowing UWW to score many baskets off 2nd and 3rd chance opportunities.  There was also at least 3 times when UWW missed a free throw but got the rebound and got some easy baskets.  The biggest area of concern though may be defending inbound plays. There were several times UWW got the ball under the basket after it was knocked out of bounds and would get lay-up after lay-up.  Still, Carthage had a game winning attempt at the buzzer.  Against UWP, Carthage was ahead most of the night, and was up 15 with 30 seconds to play.  Overall, a one point loss and a victory over the weekend against two top 20 teams is a good sign. Those four freshman are very impressive, and it should be a fun year for Carthage Basketball fans